Bruce Anderson: If you want to know why there's a pensions black hole, look to Mr Brown's character

Gordon Brown has had bad weeks in the past. Usually, Tony Blair was responsible. The PM would decide that his patience was becoming exhausted by the Chancellor's brooding, plotting, bullying vanity. Alastair Campbell would be instructed to deliver a kick in a sensitive region. Hence "psychological flaws'' and "out of control colossus''. But on previous occasions, Mr Brown could always use his mastery of events to ensure his recovery. However irritated Tony Blair became, Gordon Brown retained more power over the Government's domestic agenda than any previous Chancellor.

Not any more, and there is now a paradox. Because of his imminent departure, Mr Blair is an increasingly marginal figure in his own Government. It still seems probable that Mr Brown will succeed him. So his position ought to be immeasurably strong. But in reality, the Chancellor's power over events has been diminished, because they are eluding his grasp.

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For 10 budgets, Mr Brown put the most favourable construction on his figures. He suppressed bad news while highlighting good news, which was often less good than he claimed. He was shamelessly misleading. Yet his standing seemed impervious to his evasions.

That is no longer true. This year, he tried the same old tricks, only to find that the audience was no longer buying the act. Then came pensions.

Ten years ago, the UK had one of the best-funded pension systems in the world. Even so, it was under threat. In Isaiah Berlin's words, "some among the great goods cannot live together". Low inflation and a longer life expectancy might both sound desirable. Not if you are running a pension fund.

Before Bismarck established the first state-funded old age pension, he enquired how long the average German lived. The answer was 58. In that case, he said, the pensionable age will be 70. "The days of our age are three score and ten,'' says the Psalmist, warning that those who live longer will encounter labour and sorrow. With the help of modern medicine, more and more people are disregarding that advice. Pension funds can no longer rely on death to diminish their obligations. Nor can they assume that inflation will erode them. So even by 1997, British pension funds had long-term problems.

Along came Gordon Brown to ensure that they would also have short-term problems. He robbed the pension funds of at least £5bn a year. It is hard to think of a more destructive decision ever taken by a Chancellor.

Entirely in character, he is now trying to spread the blame. A couple of days ago, Mr Brown's most toadying sycophant, Ed Balls, lived up to his name. He told us that the Chancellor had acted "on the basis of civil servants' advice''. We know that this is nonsense, both from the recently released papers, and from the account in Tom Bower's biography of Gordon Brown.

The Chancellor had originally intended to seize £8bn a year from the pension funds. Mr Bower describes a meeting in Downing Street, instigated by Derek Scott, then the senior economist in the PM's policy unit. Primed by Mr Scott, Tony Blair suggested that taxing pensions was "not a good idea''. Mr Brown was obdurate, though Mr Blair did press him down to £5bn.

Messrs Blair and Scott's anxieties were widely shared in the Treasury. It is likely that a Treasury civil servant first alerted Number 10 to the Chancellor's plans. Moreover, as Tom Bower makes clear, Gordon Brown was not interested in civil servants' advice and was only willing to listen to those who agreed with him. Mr Balls is talking ...

Let us move from the monkey to the organ grinder. Mr Brown loves invoking prudence and long-term stability. So why did he take such an imprudent decision, which was bound to cause long-term instability? There are three plausible theories. The first is that he simply needed the cash. As he had promised not to raise tax rates, a stealth tax was required. Given that there would be no immediate political repercussions, pension funds were an obvious target.

The second, and related, explanation is that Gordon Brown is a disciple of Anthony Crosland. In the Fifties, Crosland wrote The Future of Socialism, an attempt to find an intellectual basis for a modernised Labour party. While in opposition, Gordon Brown had ambitions to write something similar. Underlying Crosland's argument was the belief that capitalism had solved the problem of wealth creation. There would always be plenty of money to go round; a Labour government should ensure that it was properly distributed.

Gordon Brown may have shared this assumption and concluded that, over the next few years, a booming stock market would repair the damage to the pension funds long before anyone noticed. The civil servants whose advice Mr Balls so spectacularly misrepresents did warn the Chancellor that weakened pension funds would depress share prices. The Brown team took no notice. It was not what they wanted to hear.

The evidence for the third explanation is to be found throughout Tom Bower's book (if every voter read it, Gordon Brown would be lucky to win election as a dog-catcher in Kirkcaldy). Mr Brown dislikes the Southern middle classes. In the 1992 election, Basildon was a crucial Labour target. It stayed Tory. In response, Gordon Brown damned Basildon man "as a selfish, indeed self-centred individual'' (on self-centredness, Mr Brown's expertise is unchallengeable). So why should Mr Brown take any interest in Basildon man's pension? "In the Chancellor's mind, pensions were the benefits handed out by the state... People who wanted to save for their old age were irrelevant." He has certainly ensured that many of their efforts will prove irrelevant.

The damage which Gordon Brown caused has been apparent for some years. Yet pensions have obstinately refused to become a political issue. This may now change. It is always difficult to keep campaigns going during a Parliamentary recess; that is why Mr Brown released the information on Friday. But this may prove to be an exception. Millions of people who thought that they had organised a comfortable old age have become aware that Gordon Brown has clunked their pensions.

Up to now, a lot of voters respected Mr Brown even if they did not warm to him. They thought that he was honest, if intimidating. That is a viable electoral platform. But many voters may be changing their minds. They may be about to regard him as slippery and intimidating. That is not a platform. It is a scaffold. No wonder Charles Clarke has decided that if David Milliband does not challenge Mr Brown, he will.

Over the next few weeks, Gordon Brown will try to persuade his party that he can synthesise old and new Labour. On pensions, he has drawn on the wisdom of a well known figure from Labour's past: Robert Maxwell.

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